When the client-consultant relationship is functioning at its best, the consultant gives the client:

Information: The data and analyses that take the client’s world, industry, and market position and make sense of it.

Expertise: An experienced operator’s perspective on a problem and the different ways that it can be solved.

Insight: The rigorous, analytical application of expertise to data to come up with insights that will help the company succeed.

Execution: The roadmap to choosing and implementing the changes to be made.

And each one of these values has been disrupted in ways big and small over the last several years.

Information about customers and competitors is more available than ever. Expertise has been disaggregated. Insight has been productized (and in some cases, commoditized). And execution has, in many cases, been brought in-house or outsourced to freelancers.